Acta Veterinaria et Zootechnica Sinica ›› 2022, Vol. 53 ›› Issue (6): 1712-1722.doi: 10.11843/j.issn.0366-6964.2022.06.006

• ANIMALGENETICS AND BREEDING • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Screening and Functional Study of lncRNA-6617 Regulating Porcine Intramuscular Preadipocytes Differentiation

MENG Shan, YANG Yang, LI Ruixiao, JI Mengting, ZHANG Na, LU Chang, CAI Chunbo, GAO Pengfei, GUO Xiaohong, CAO Guoqing, LI Bugao*   

  1. College of Animal Science, Shanxi Agricultural University, Taigu 030801, China
  • Received:2021-11-03 Online:2022-06-23 Published:2022-06-25

Abstract: The aim of this study was to investigate the biological characteristics of lncRNA-6617 and its effect on the differentiation of porcine intramuscular preadipocytes, preliminarily explore its upstream regulatory mechanism, and to provide the base for further clarifying the regulation mechanism of intramuscular fat deposition in pigs. In this study, healthy Mashen boars (n=3) and Large White boars (n=3) of 1, 90, and 180 days of age were raised under the same conditions. RNA-seq technology was used to screen muscle-specific lncRNAs in fatty-type pigs (Mashen pigs) and lean-type pigs (Large White pigs). Bioinformatics analysis, RT-PCR and Sanger sequencing were used to identify lncRNA-6617 biological characteristics and expression characteristics in pig tissues. The effect of lncRNA-6617 on the differentiation ability of intramuscular adipocytes were detected after interfering with lncRNA-6617 in porcine intramuscular preadipocytes. Subsequently, the expression differences of m6A modification-related enzymes in different breeds of pigs were detected, and the upstream regulatory mechanism of lncRNA-6617 was studied. The results showed that lncRNA-6617 was located on pig chromosome 18, the third intron region of the RAMP3 gene antisense strand, had no protein coding ability, and mainly distributed in the nucleus. lncRNA-6617 was expressed in all detected pig tissues, with the highest expression in back subcutaneous fat, and its expression was significantly higher in MS pigs muscle tissue than that in LW pigs(P < 0.01). In the differentiation process of porcine intramuscular preadipocytes, the expression level of lncRNA-6617 showed an upward trend and reached the peak on day 5. After interfering with lncRNA-6617, the number of differentiated mature adipocytes were significantly reduced, and the expression of key adipogenic genes CEBPα, PPARγ and aP2 were significantly down-regulated (P < 0.01) on day 7 of differentiation. The expression of m6A-modified demethylase FTO were significantly higher in the longissimus dorsi and biceps femoris muscle of MS pigs than that of LW pigs (P < 0.01), and were significantly higher than that of LW pigs in the psoas muscle (P < 0.05). And the expression of upstream regulator ZNF217 were significantly higher in the muscle tissue of MS pigs than that in LW pigs (P < 0.01), which was consistent with the expression pattern of lncRNA-6617. After interfering with FTO, the expression of lncRNA-6617 was significantly down-regulated (P < 0.01). In conclusion, lncRNA-6617 highly expressed in the muscle tissue of Mashen pig was screened and identified. The function of lncRNA-6617 in promoting the differentiation of porcine intramuscular preadipocytes and its upstream regulation mechanism were further studied, which riched the epigenetic regulation network of adipogenesis.

Key words: Mashen pig, lncRNA-6617, m6A, intramuscular adipocytes, adipogenic differentiation

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